PRAXIS: Christianity and Libertarianism – Toward a Coherent Christian Political Economy – Video


PRAXIS: Christianity and Libertarianism - Toward a Coherent Christian Political Economy
One pressing question in discussing conservatism and libertarianism is: how should one #39;s faith influence their politics? Through a critique of both the left ...

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PRAXIS: Christianity and Libertarianism - Toward a Coherent Christian Political Economy - Video

Guest column: Libertarianism 101, by leader of The Cato Institute

By Robert A. Levy

Naples

Chairman, The Cato Institute

Libertarianism is a political philosophy grounded on these propositions: Adult individuals have the right and responsibility to decide important matters about their own lives, but they may not infringe on the equal rights of others. Governments role is to secure those rights. The key word, from the Declaration of Independence, is secure, not grant. We do not get our rights from government. Individuals have natural rights, independent of government. Thats a bedrock libertarian principle and, its fair to say, the Founders were libertarians.

Within that framework, consider the polemic against libertarianism by Rev. Michael P. Orsi (Libertarian Candidate Not Good, Naples Daily News, March 16) as reduced to five assertions:

1. Extreme individualism is contrary to the common good.

Libertarians understand the necessity of cooperation to attain personals goals. My colleague, Tom Palmer, observes that individuals can never actually be self-sufficient, which is precisely why we must have rules to make peaceful cooperation possible. Government enforces those rules. The risk, however, is that rules too extensive will produce, not a common good for all, but rather a veneer for a system of special favors to secure largesse for the politically connected at the expense of others. By contrast, individualism promotes the common good, spontaneously, as long as no commanding power preempts freely chosen actions.

2. Belief in every man for himself is incompatible with concern for the poor.

From an ethical perspective, it may be morally right to help the poor; but in a completely free society we should have a political right not to do so. Put differently, a theory of justice is not always congruent with a theory of politics. One can condemn bad conduct without empowering government to take remedial action. Yes, charity is a virtue. But government-compelled charity is a contradiction in terms a political act that negates real charity, which must be voluntary, not coerced.

As it happens, the evidence proves conclusively that more wealth including a greater abundance for the poor is a by-product of individual liberty.

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Guest column: Libertarianism 101, by leader of The Cato Institute

Rand Paul 2016: Front-runner or overrated? (+video)

Sen. Rand Paul has won several recent straw polls and surveys, and his brand of libertarianism seems to be on the rise in his party. But anointing him the early GOP front-runner for 2016 may be going too far.

Is Rand Paul really the front-runner for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination? Theres some chatter to that effect at the moment among Washingtons pundit class. It was sparked by last weekends victory for the Kentucky senator in another straw poll, this one at the Northeast Republican Leadership Conference. Then CNN/ORC released a poll on Sunday with Senator Paul leading the list of potential nominees for GOP and GOP-leaning voters.

Washington Editor

Peter Grier is The Christian Science Monitor's Washington editor. In this capacity, he helps direct coverage for the paper on most news events in the nation's capital.

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As CNN notes, thats a feat that Pauls father, Ron Paul, never accomplished in all his years running for president.

Plus, Paul is already making good use of his fathers base of committed donors, notes Washington Post political expert Chris Cillizza. Hes done well in the early-voting states of Iowa and New Hampshire. Pauls brand of libertarianism seems to be on the rise in his party, particularly among young Republicans.

Its past time people start taking him seriously as a potential Republican nominee, Mr. Cillizza writes.

Well, sure. Paul himself seems intent on making a serious run. Where his fathers presidential efforts seemed more purely ideological, based on promoting the libertarian brand, Paul is doing the sort of stuff you do if you actually plan on trying to win the thing. Thus hes established an alliance of sorts with the very establishment Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell, his fellow Kentuckian.

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Rand Paul 2016: Front-runner or overrated? (+video)

No headline – orsi_essay

For the second year in a row, U.S. Sen. Rand Paul has won the CPAC Washington Times Straw Poll. This year he won by 31 percent of the votes cast, 20 points higher than his closest rival for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination.

This is disturbing since 50 percent of those attending the conference were millennials between the ages of 18 and 25.

Libertarians have always been outliers in the American political scene. Their extreme individualism militates against the republican principles upon which this country was founded, first and foremost of which is a common concern for all those who share in the national franchise.

The Founders built safeguards into both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution to protect all Americans rights. They also recognized that a certain amount of personal liberty had to be ceded to the state to guarantee security and good functioning of the civil order. For example, a military draft and taxation have always been recognized as legitimate rights of the state necessary for the common good.

Libertarians favor a limited state, minimal taxation, and an unfettered free market. The question always remains: How much is limited? This is difficult to determine since libertarians run the gamut according to which issue is being discussed.

These issues apply to international and national affairs. For example, libertarians favor isolationism. Is this wise with American interests present in a globalized economy?

Even if there were no imminent threat to the U.S. or her interests, is it not true that as a part of the family of nations we have an obligation to help weaker nations overcome invasion and rapine by more powerful states? Or, can we tolerate genocide within national borders and make no effort to stop it? This would be ethically wrong.

Certainly, one can make the case that President Barack Obamas proposed cutbacks in military spending for the next fiscal year could be deemed a nod to libertarian principles, since this would limit Americas international presence.

Libertarians basically believe in the maxim, Every man for himself. This being so, the national fabric is in jeopardy.

For example, during the latter part of the 20th century, legislation was passed to prevent monopolies from gaining hegemony over American business and inhibiting free enterprise. An important part of our democratic life is the ability for each individual to achieve his or her full potential. To do this there are occasions when government must intervene to allow fairness of access to wealth for all.

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Rand Paul 2016: Front-runner or overrated?

Sen. Rand Paul has won several recent straw polls and surveys, and his brand of libertarianism seems to be on the rise in his party. But anointing him the early GOP front-runner for 2016 may be going too far.

Is Rand Paul really the front-runner for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination? Theres some chatter to that effect at the moment among Washingtons pundit class. It was sparked by last weekends victory for the Kentucky senator in another straw poll, this one at the Northeast Republican Leadership Conference. Then CNN/ORC released a poll on Sunday with Senator Paul leading the list of potential nominees for GOP and GOP-leaning voters.

Washington Editor

Peter Grier is The Christian Science Monitor's Washington editor. In this capacity, he helps direct coverage for the paper on most news events in the nation's capital.

Subscribe Today to the Monitor

Click Here for your FREE 30 DAYS of The Christian Science Monitor Weekly Digital Edition

As CNN notes, thats a feat that Pauls father, Ron Paul, never accomplished in all his years running for president.

Plus, Paul is already making good use of his fathers base of committed donors, notes Washington Post political expert Chris Cillizza. Hes done well in the early-voting states of Iowa and New Hampshire. Pauls brand of libertarianism seems to be on the rise in his party, particularly among young Republicans.

Its past time people start taking him seriously as a potential Republican nominee, Mr. Cillizza writes.

Well, sure. Paul himself seems intent on making a serious run. Where his fathers presidential efforts seemed more purely ideological, based on promoting the libertarian brand, Paul is doing the sort of stuff you do if you actually plan on trying to win the thing. Thus hes established an alliance of sorts with the very establishment Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell, his fellow Kentuckian.

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Rand Paul 2016: Front-runner or overrated?

GOP must embrace libertarianism

The next two years are crucial for the Republican Party. They been defeated in two straight presidential elections and some question the future of the GOP.

They have put up fairly weak candidates in John McCain and Mitt Romney, have successfully be painted as the party of "no" and have been blamed for the last government shutdown.

However, the 2014 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) sent an important message to the party. If the message isnt followed, the party will soon collapse.

That message? The party is moving in the libertarian direction.

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky), a freshman that has pushed many libertarian causes, won the yearly straw poll conducted at CPAC in a landslide. Paul garnered 31 percent of the vote, while second place Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) finished a distant second, only receiving 11 percent.

Politico says that while only 2,459 votes were cast, nearly 50 percent of those votes were made by those in the 18-25 age group.

This result is more than just more talk for political pundits. It shows what the Republican Party must do in order to achieve success in future elections.

The ever-growing libertarian movement is making a large impact in the GOP, and Paul is quickly becoming the face of this movement. These people, including myself, are less conservative on social issues and are becoming more attractive to the young voter.

They generally push for civil liberties, decriminalization of marijuana, restraint in foreign affairs, and allowing gay marriage. The agenda is one that speaks of freedom, both for your wallet and for your life.

Other results from the CPAC straw poll reveal more libertarian leanings.

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GOP must embrace libertarianism

Paul Ryans worst nightmare: Heres the real way to cut poverty in America

Poverty is back in the news, for several reasons. The first is the 50th anniversary of President Lyndon Johnsons 1964 War on Poverty speech. In addition, Republican congressman and 2012 vice-presidential candidate Paul Ryan has released a much-criticized report about federal poverty programs. In 2012 the Romney-Ryan ticket suffered from Mitt Romneys dismissive comments about the 47 percent and conservative caricatures of the poor as welfare-dependent moochers and takers. Ryans attempt at a version of what George W. Bush called compassionate conservatism appears to be an effort at rebranding the right as something other than an alliance of Have-Lots and Have-Somes against Have-Nots.

Public debate about poverty typically focuses on the causes of poverty, rather than the cures. The causes of poverty are many and various. You may be poor because you are the child of poor parents; or because you grew up in an economically distressed urban or rural region; or because you were bankrupted by unexpected medical bills; or because you lost all your money gambling on imaginary real estate in Second Life (this actually occurred, in a case of which I know). Because poverty has multiple causes, policies must be equally numerous, if the goal is to avert or prevent poverty in the future.

But its not necessary to avert or prevent poverty in the future in order to cure the poverty that already exists in the present, for whatever reason. Let me illustrate this point with an example. The treatment of victims of gunshot wounds in the emergency room may be identical even though one gunshot wound was caused by a shooting in the course of a robbery, another by a failed suicide attempt and a third by reckless play with a firearm. Doctors and nurses can treat the victims of the gunshot wounds now, while leaving others to propose better policing, better suicide-prevention counseling and better firearm safety training in the future.

Fortunately, drastically reducing existing poverty in the U.S. is not a difficult intellectual problem, even though it is a difficult political problem. With sufficient political will, we could slash existing poverty in the U.S. very quickly, while simultaneously trying to prevent as much poverty as possible in the future. Some public policy problems, like averting global warming or regulating shadow banking, are incredibly complex. By comparison, antipoverty policy is simple.

We know exactly what we need to do to radically reduce poverty in America. We know that it could be done, and we know how to do it, because many other First World democracies have slashed poverty already.

Among developed nations, the U.S. is an outlier in having a high proportion of its population living in poverty. Among the 34 member nations of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), in 2010 on average 11.1 percent of the population suffer from relative income poverty. In the U.S. , however, the number is 17.4 percent. Among developed countries, only Chile (18%), Turkey (19.3%), Mexico (20.4%) and Israel (20.9%) have more of their people living in poverty, according to the OECD.

The low-poverty nations tend to be Scandinavian countries like Sweden (9.1%), Norway (7.5%), Finland (7.3%) and Denmark (6.0%). Some on the right argue that it is wrong to compare small, relatively homogeneous countries with a giant, pluralistic, continental society like the U.S. Others argue that the English-speaking countries as a whole are willing to tolerate more poverty and inequality than the Nordic social democracies.

The numbers dont support these arguments. Among the most populous Western states are France (7.9%) and Germany (8.8%), both of which have around half as many people in poverty as the U.S., notwithstanding their own growing immigrant populations. And while all English-speaking countries tend to be less statist than continental European societies, all of the other anglophone nations have considerably less poverty than the U.S., including Australia (14.4%) and Canada (11.9 %). Indeed, three English-speaking countries Ireland (9.0%), the UK (10.0 %) and New Zealand (10.3%) have fewer citizens in poverty than the OECD average in 2010 of 11.1%.

How do other countries do it? They dont necessarily have fewer poor people to begin with. According to an OECD study, with respect to pre-tax, pre-transfer poverty, the U.S., at 13, ranked in the middle of 26 high-income nations. When it comes to post-tax, post-transfer poverty, however, the U.S. was nearly the worst, second only to Israel.

The difference is entirely the result of government social spending on the poor mostly in the form of transfer payments, like public pensions, unemployment insurance, child subsidies and/or wage subsidies. Many other developed democracies start out with lots of poor people, just like the U.S. But the countries with big welfare states remove most of them from poverty. The American welfare state does lower the poverty rate but not enough. The American welfare state is way too small to be effective in doing its job of lowering poverty.

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Paul Ryans worst nightmare: Heres the real way to cut poverty in America

Will Edward Snowden affect presidential race? Rand Paul hopes so.

Snowden's leaks about NSA surveillance have launched a broad discussion about civil liberties, and Rand Paulis using civil liberties and NSA overreach as themes with which to frame his brand of libertarianism.

Will Edward Snowden affect the 2016 presidential race? Yes, its early yet, so in some ways the question appears very premature. But Snowdens leaks about the extent of National Security Agency surveillance have launched a wide-ranging discussion about civil liberties in the US. And its already clear that the issue could play a part in the contest for the Republican presidential nomination in particular.

Washington Editor

Peter Grier is The Christian Science Monitor's Washington editor. In this capacity, he helps direct coverage for the paper on most news events in the nation's capital.

Subscribe Today to the Monitor

Click Here for your FREE 30 DAYS of The Christian Science Monitor Weekly Digital Edition

Thats because Sen. Rand Paul (R) of Kentucky is using civil liberties and NSA overreach as themes with which to frame his brand of libertarianism. This was on full display at the just-completed Conservative Political Action Conference in suburban Washington, D.C. Senator Pauls speech was almost entirely about the NSA and what he sees as its infringement on the rights of Americans.

Paul said the American Revolutions sons of liberty would make a bonfire of the secret orders that authorize NSA actions. In a reference to NSA monitoring of cell phone metadata, he said that I believe what you do on your cell phone is none of their [expletive] business.

Paul brought up the lawsuit hes filed against the NSA for its activities, and said he was talking about electing lovers of liberty, not just Republicans.

Dont forget, there is a great battle going on for the heart and soul of America, Paul said.

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Will Edward Snowden affect presidential race? Rand Paul hopes so.

Will Edward Snowden affect presidential race? Rand Paul hopes so. (+video)

Snowden's leaks about NSA surveillance have launched a broad discussion about civil liberties, and Rand Paulis using civil liberties and NSA overreach as themes with which to frame his brand of libertarianism.

Will Edward Snowden affect the 2016 presidential race? Yes, its early yet, so in some ways the question appears very premature. But Snowdens leaks about the extent of National Security Agency surveillance have launched a wide-ranging discussion about civil liberties in the US. And its already clear that the issue could play a part in the contest for the Republican presidential nomination in particular.

Washington Editor

Peter Grier is The Christian Science Monitor's Washington editor. In this capacity, he helps direct coverage for the paper on most news events in the nation's capital.

Subscribe Today to the Monitor

Click Here for your FREE 30 DAYS of The Christian Science Monitor Weekly Digital Edition

Thats because Sen. Rand Paul (R) of Kentucky is using civil liberties and NSA overreach as themes with which to frame his brand of libertarianism. This was on full display at the just-completed Conservative Political Action Conference in suburban Washington, D.C. Senator Pauls speech was almost entirely about the NSA and what he sees as its infringement on the rights of Americans.

Paul said the American Revolutions sons of liberty would make a bonfire of the secret orders that authorize NSA actions. In a reference to NSA monitoring of cell phone metadata, he said that I believe what you do on your cell phone is none of their [expletive] business.

Paul brought up the lawsuit hes filed against the NSA for its activities, and said he was talking about electing lovers of liberty, not just Republicans.

Dont forget, there is a great battle going on for the heart and soul of America, Paul said.

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Will Edward Snowden affect presidential race? Rand Paul hopes so. (+video)

5 things we learned from CPAC

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

National Harbor, Maryland (CNN) -- It would be a mistake to read too much into the speeches, breakout sessions and late-night parties that took place at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference.

Thousands of right-leaning activists made the pilgrimage here this year, to a convention hall outside the nation's capital. They were greeted, as they are every year, by a bevy of candidates, bloggers, political operatives and more than a few hucksters out to make a buck.

But it's tough to glean any sweeping insight into the state of the conservative movement just by hanging out at CPAC for a few days and talking to its most rock-ribbed and outspoken partisans.

And yet: The confluence of big name Republican speakers -- many of them potential White House contenders -- makes the three-day event impossible to ignore.

CPAC crowd chants, 'Run, Sarah, run!'

Here are five big takeaways from CPAC 2014:

1. This is Rand's house: Rand Paul's blowout win in the presidential straw poll Saturday -- he won more than a third of the vote, easily besting second-place finisher Ted Cruz -- cemented his place as the King of CPAC.

Rand Paul convincingly wins CPAC straw poll

Paul's address here on Friday, unapologetically heavy with libertarian sentiment, was far and away the best-received speech of the weekend. The room was packed and Paul, wearing jeans, was interrupted repeatedly by standing ovations. After his appearance, he joined his wife, Kelley, across the street from the convention center at a packed restaurant for an open bar happy hour with fired-up supporters.

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5 things we learned from CPAC

Freedom or Slavery? The Debate between Libertarianism/Voluntarism and Social Democrats/Socialists – Video


Freedom or Slavery? The Debate between Libertarianism/Voluntarism and Social Democrats/Socialists
Corey from newamericangovernment.org address the lack of clearness of terms that socialists use when debating vs libertarians. Read more about libertarianism...

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Freedom or Slavery? The Debate between Libertarianism/Voluntarism and Social Democrats/Socialists - Video

Paul addresses social conservatives

Sen. Rand Paul on Wednesday pitched a socially conservative crowd on his brand of libertarianism, speaking in greater detail than usual about what that philosophy would include.

The Kentucky Republican, a likely 2016 contender, addressed a Four Seasons ballroom in Georgetown where Gov. Rick Perry (R-Texas), Rep. Paul Broun (R-Ga.), who is running for Senate, Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) and Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council were all in attendance, among other leading conservatives. The GOP mega-donor Foster Friess and his wife were named as the legacy sponsors in the event program for the Weyrich Awards Dinner, named for the late conservative leader Paul Weyrich.

We need to extend our message to people who havent been listening to us, Paul told the crowd. To me, thats a message that may have a libertarian twist, which I think is the same as liberty, or Bill of Rights. It means the Fourth Amendment is as important as the Second Amendment, the Fifth Amendments important, the Sixth Amendment, the right to trial by jury.

(DRIVING THE DAY: Inside Reid, Cantors power plays)

The senator has long been urging the GOP to expand its tent to make minorities and young people feel comfortable. He singled out, as he has before, racial disparities in drug sentencing.

We need to be the party that says were not compromising on balancing budgets and lowering taxes and less regulations, he said. But why dont we be the party that has some compassion for people that arent being treated fairly by the criminal justice system?

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Paul addresses social conservatives

Mail bag # 2: Talking to friends about libertarianism, Stalkers, Challenges with show, Suggestions – Video


Mail bag # 2: Talking to friends about libertarianism, Stalkers, Challenges with show, Suggestions
Mail bag # 2: Talking to friends about libertarianism, Stalkers, Challenges with show, Suggestions Twitter: https://twitter.com/TruthRevolt FaceBook: https:/...

By: Aaron TruthRevoltNEWS

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Mail bag # 2: Talking to friends about libertarianism, Stalkers, Challenges with show, Suggestions - Video